Belt centering effects of crowning roller

Abstract

Centering (skew) characteristics of flat belt running between crowning rollers together with conical rollers are investigated by using FEM software MARC. Changing toiler misalignment, belt initial position and main parameter values, the belt skew is simulated. The results indicate that the belt always skews to the center position of the parallel crowning rollers independent of the belt initial position. During the skew, the belt wraps spirally around the rollers coming into contact at the larger diameter side of the rollers and separating at the smaller one. When the belt moves with the rollers with negligible small slip, the belt moves to the top of the crowning. This is the belt centering mechanism. As the crowning radius becomes smaller, the centering gets faster.